


I'll Tell You Every Place and Person That I've Been

by rosa_himmelblau



Series: The Roadhouse Blues [7]
Category: Wiseguy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 10:46:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17765327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosa_himmelblau/pseuds/rosa_himmelblau
Summary: If you look up denial in the dictionary, you'll find a picture of Sonny Steelgrave saying, "Denial?  What?  What're you talking about?"Vinnie just wants to feel safe.





	I'll Tell You Every Place and Person That I've Been

Vinnie woke up with the distinct feeling something was wrong, and then he remembered: he was in North Dakota. With Sonny. In a hotel. And Sonny was in his bed again.

There were rules to this game, but Vinnie was damned if he could understand them. Instead he listed them in his head, like trying to draw a picture of something he could feel but couldn't see. In the first hotel they'd stayed in, there had been only one bed. It was, as the desk clerk pointed out, a honeymoon hotel, and honeymooners generally preferred—

Sonny hadn't let him finish, had just started peeling off fifties.

"I don't think Ulysses Grant can change one bed into two," Vinnie had said, "no matter how many you got. Now, maybe if you had money with pictures of Jesus on it—" He stopped when Sonny looked at him like he was crazy. "Why don't you just get two rooms?"

Sonny had ignored that, had paid up front for a room with just one bed, even if it was king-sized and not even heart-shaped or anything. Vinnie had made mental notes.

They'd stayed in a couple of other places since then, in hotels with two beds. But every morning when Vinnie woke up, Sonny was in his bed, lying behind him, one arm wrapped around him, his hand up under Vinnie's T-shirt, palm pressed to Vinnie's chest as though holding his heart in place. And it was strange because Vinnie was quite sure that when he'd gone to bed the night before, he'd been alone, that Sonny was in his own bed.

If he moved enough to wake Sonny, Sonny would get up and go take a shower, which meant who knew what? That sleeping in Vinnie's bed made him feel dirty, that he wanted a private place to beat off—

That he always took a shower first thing in the morning and wanted to be sure he got hot water? Because sometimes a cigar really was just a cigar.

So: if there was only one bed, it came with an invisible force field that divided it into Sonny's side of the bed and Vinnie's side of the bed, and Vinnie was pretty sure that if he trespassed on Sonny's side, Sonny would shoot him, metaphorically speaking. But if there were two beds, Sonny would end up in Vinnie's, practically on top of him.

There were times when Sonny's reality was so much stronger than Vinnie's that Vinnie literally wasn't sure if they were having sex or not. Sonny could go from having his tongue in Vinnie's mouth and his hand in Vinnie's pants to "Who? Me? What're you talking about?" so fast Vinnie was left speechless. Sonny could be in the bathroom washing Vinnie's come off his hands and if Vinnie said anything that even remotely brushed against the subject of what they'd just done, the look Sonny would give him could only be described as uncomprehending. "What?" Sonny would ask as though Vinnie was insane, and Vinnie would start to wonder if he really was insane, if they really were having sex.

And then he'd look in the mirror, and since he wasn't Ingrid Bergman, Sonny couldn't be Charles Boyer, and maybe one of them was crazy but Sonny wasn't trying to drive him crazy, which had to count for something, right? The lights would flicker, but Sonny didn't make them flicker, he just ignored them—

It was a ridiculous analogy.

And of course there was another rule, an earlier one, one that, ironically or logically or something, went without saying: don't talk about it.

It was still dark out, but the clock said five-forty-two, so it was morning. Sonny was awake, Vinnie could tell by the way he felt, a sort of—whatever the opposite of relaxed was. Alert, maybe, an alertness. Did Sonny know Vinnie was awake? Probably not. In a few minutes Vinnie would have to move and Sonny would get up, taking his meaningless morning erection to the bathroom. That's all it was, nothing personal, sometimes a hard-on was just a hard-on. Vinnie thought about offering him a blow-job, but it was morning, it would be light soon and there would be no darkness to buffer things between them, whatever the things between them were. Vinnie would have liked to know, but he had no idea how to ask. But whatever they were, they most assuredly needed buffering.

Sonny got up, and in a minute the bathroom door closed.

Another day, silent and broody, Sonny pacing and staring out the window, Vinnie lying on his bed, slouching in a chair, trying to find something on TV. Every once in a while Sonny would go over and slap the on/off switch. Vinnie would watch him walk back to the window, watch him stand there looking out, and wonder what he was thinking. What did Sonny think about when he stared out the window? And then in a few minutes he'd quit watching Sonny and turn the TV back on.

He didn't know why they didn't go out, why he didn't go with Sonny when he bought breakfast, and lunch—the day was a pretty one, warm and sunny. At one point he opened the door to the balcony, went out to stand on it and look at the swimming pool. It was warm, but not warm enough to swim. Pretty, though, the turquoise-tinted water, the clear blue sky. Very pretty. We should go out, Vinnie thought, but he couldn't think where, so he turned the TV back on and lay back down on his bed. What are we waiting for? Waiting for what?

He couldn't have explained why, when Sonny went out for lunch, he started looking through Sonny's wallet, except that it was there, laying on Sonny's bed, waiting to go back in his pocket when Sonny realized he'd left it behind and came back for it. Well, and Vinnie was bored. And there wasn't really anything in his own wallet, or anything on TV, or anything to do, and if Sonny came back and caught him, there'd be hell to pay. Sonny would already be in a bad mood from leaving the wallet behind; things could get ugly.

The fear was a real kick.

Yeah, he was bored.

Cash, of course. Sonny always carried a lot of cash, big bills. He'd gotten into the habit of handing Vinnie anything he got back in change that was less than a twenty, except for quarters, which he kept. Vinnie had seen some of the looks the hotel desk clerks had given him, and it made him wish Sonny would cut it out. On the other hand, it meant he always had plenty of money in his pocket. And it wasn't like he could complain, since that would mean making Sonny aware of the looks they were getting, which, knowing Sonny, could mean they'd stop sleeping in hotels, and Vinnie didn't really want to sleep in the car until they could find an apartment.

Besides the money, Sonny's wallet housed a driver's license with his fake name on it. Three credit cards, one Vinnie had never seen Sonny use. A library card? Vinnie hadn't seen that coming, couldn't picture Sonny in a library. It was recent, too, or fairly recent, since it had the fake name on it, and it was from their time in Dodge City. Maybe Sonny had been reading about gunslingers. Vinnie tried to picture that, but he couldn't; he didn't remember Sonny ever reading a book. Sonny read newspapers; wherever they were, he read the local paper, he read the Wall Street Journal, he read the New York Times, he read the Washington Post. He also read Newsweek, Time, USA Today. Those were the constants, though he picked up other papers from time to time, too. Vinnie kept trying to imagine Sonny in the library, but he couldn't do it. He went back to the wallet.

He was down to the photographs. There was one of Sonny's parents, his mother holding a baby that was probably Lorenzo, since they were the right age and Sonny's father had died before Tracy was born. A picture of Tracy and Sonny, taken . . . fuck. The night of her parents' anniversary party. Vinnie recognized the blue dress she'd worn. Except for mug shots and what the paparazzi took, this was probably the last picture taken of Sonny. Vinnie took it over to the window where the light was better, looked at the people in the background, but there was no one he recognized. He'd been in a holding cell when this was taken, or maybe arguing with Frank in an interrogation room. Vinnie ran his finger over the picture, caressing the past. Sonny looked on top of the world.

Vinnie went on to the next photo, a picture of Dave and Sonny, circa probably sometime in the late seventies-early eighties, at another party. That was all the pictures. Tracy must have given them to him.

Behind the photos was a matchbook cover from a wedding reception, the names Peggy & Tony, April 14, 1979 imprinted blue on an ivory background. The matches had been torn away and on the inside of the cover was written, Call me? but no name or phone number. Whoever had written it expected Sonny to know her number and remember her name. Vinnie hoped it wasn't Peggy.

That seemed to be everything. Vinnie unhurriedly put everything back just as he'd found it and dropped the wallet back on the bed. Sonny still wasn't back.

They did go out for dinner, both of them. There wasn't much talking, but the food was OK. They drove the ten blocks back to the hotel in silence. Vinnie kept trying to figure out what Sonny was thinking, but it was hard because he barely knew what he was thinking himself.

Back in the two-beds hotel room, it was eight-thirty and Sonny was taking a shower because . . . he was bored. That was the only reason Vinnie could come up with because how dirty could he have gotten pacing around a hotel room?

Vinnie didn't take a shower; it wasn't that he wasn't that bored, it was more that . . . he wasn't Sonny, if that made any sense. He'd played the I will do what you are doing game with Pete when he was little; he'd feel stupid playing it with Sonny. He turned out the lights and lay in his bed and listened to the shower's uneven water pressure pouring water. If it had been even a little later at night it could have soothed him to sleep. Instead he lay and listened to Sonny shower, brush his teeth, come out of the bathroom to find a dark room and swear, which was the most interesting thing that had happened all day. Sonny called him an idiot and turned on a light and Vinnie muffled his laughter with his pillow.

When Sonny was settled in his own, his very own bed, when it was completely dark and quiet except for the usual anonymous hotel sounds, Vinnie took a deep breath.

"Sonny, you want a blow-job?" When he'd thought about this before, this was not how Vinnie had thought of doing this; he'd thought of doing it as a progression of what they were already doing, but they weren't exactly already doing anything, so that wasn't really an option.

"What?" As though it was the stupidest question he'd ever been asked. As though Vinnie wasn't offering but just asking to annoy him.

Maybe that's what he thought. "I thought that was a pretty easy question. Do you want me to give you a blow-job?"

Sonny started laughing. "You gotta be kidding me." He turned over, away from Vinnie. "Go to sleep."

"I'm not kidding."

"Then you're out of your mind."

"I'm not out of my mind, I'm just offering you a blow-job." In the history of the world, had a guy ever had to be argued into getting a blow-job? Vinnie didn't think so. Not until now, not until Sonny.

"Vinnie. Are you trying to tell me you're a fag? Is that what this is about?"

Of course he should have seen that question coming, and of course he hadn't, so he had no immediate answer.

"Is this where your stepfather got the idea you'd ever been in my bed? Is this the reason he wants to lock you up?" Sonny sounded both betrayed and somehow . . . sorry for him? "Vinnie. You should'a told me."

"Told you what?" Vinnie asked. Sonny had lost him.

Sonny was out of bed, moving around, but he wasn't coming anywhere near Vinnie, he was getting dressed.

"What, are you going to sleep in your clothes? Sonny?"

"Shut up, I don't wanna talk to you right now."

Vinnie sat up, turned on the light. Sonny squinted at him for a minute, standing there in just his shirt and socks, then he pulled a pair of shorts out of his suitcase and sat down to put them on. Vinnie just watched him, and he knew Sonny knew he was watching him and didn't want him to, knew by the set of his shoulders, by the slightly jerky, self-conscious way he moved.

"Sonny."

Sonny got up, went into the bathroom, came out with his jeans on.

"Sonny."

He sat down again to put on his shoes. "Stop talking," Sonny said, and his voice was amazingly gentle, and Vinnie could practically feel Sonny stroking his face. "Just stop talking."

Vinnie did, because he really didn't know what to say. He watched Sonny look around the room, trying to locate his coat, and finally directed him to the closet. "Where're you going?"

But Sonny just walked out, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Vinnie sat there a minute, then he turned the light back off. He could follow Sonny, but what would be the point? If Sonny was ditching him, Sonny was ditching him. Running after him, begging him to stay, wouldn't change anything. Is that what you'd do? Beg him to stay? Vinnie had no idea.

He lay in the dark, working out his future sans Sonny. He had no money—maybe two hundred bucks and change, but he could get a day job; he had a car. He had his Sonny-procured fake I.D. Was Sonny ditching him, and did he care?

That question was too hard, so Vinnie's mind found something else, a puzzle to work out: the matchbook cover he'd found in Sonny's wallet.

Where did it come from? Well, a wedding, of course. Tony & Peggy's wedding. But where isn't the real question, is it? When is the real question. When did Sonny go to this wedding?

Vinnie had taken it for an artifact of Sonny's old life, which made sense except—how had he gotten it? Vinnie couldn't imagine that he'd told the Jersey cop to get him his fake I.D. and the matchbook cover some bridesmaid had slipped him a message on. That was ridiculous.

But it didn't make any more sense for it to be from Sonny's new life, unless he'd started crashing weddings. Hell, maybe he had, maybe he when he was bored he put on a tux and went to fancy weddings, smiling charmingly when asked for an invitation, pretending to have left it at home—

"Yeah, sure." No, it wasn't from his new life, which meant it had to be his old life. "Maybe he picked it up on the street, or found it in an ashtray when he was out to lunch one day. Maybe— Maybe—"

Vinnie's brain stuttered on these absurd possibilities. Now he was laughing, coming up with crazier and crazier points of origin for a matchbook cover. "Maybe instead of a fortune in his cookie, he got a matchbook cover with an anonymous proposition from a girl in a powder blue ball gown! Maybe some escaped mental patient passed it to him on the street, thinking he was the reincarnation of Errol Flynn!"

Then he remembered—there had been a date on the cover, April something, nineteen-seventy-nine. So it had been from Sonny's old life. How had he gotten it back, when he'd abandoned that life to start a new one?

"Maybe it was still in his tuxedo pocket from when he went to Tom and Peggy's wedding." Only that wasn't right because there was no way Sonny would wear an eight year old tux to his own wedding, besides, Vinnie'd been there when he'd been fitted for the new tux. "Maybe instead of Inspected by #8, Sonny's tailor— Maybe he transferred it from one pocket to another, like a good luck—" And then it hit him. Tracy. Tracy had gotten all her uncle's things, Tracy was where he'd undoubtedly gotten the pictures he carried—

"So the question is really why. Why did he decide to not just keep that old matchbook cover, but carry it around with him? Sonny's not sentimental. Sticking it in his wallet at a wedding and leaving it there is one thing, but deliberately putting it in a new wallet in a new life means something. How old was Theresa in seventy-nine?" Maybe that question was irrelevant, but Vinnie didn't think so. Sonny really had loved her. And Vinnie could see her, slipping him a note, not needing to include either her name or number. She'd have been young then, too young for Sonny to have made that call, but he'd still have liked the message. And he would have liked the covertness of carrying it now, knowing that no one who saw it would know what it meant.

Vinnie half-wished he hadn't figured it out. He had enough of Sonny's secrets, he didn't want any more, especially one Sonny hadn't given him.

“What I ought’a be thinking about is why I offered to give him a blow-job when it’s about my least favorite thing in the world to do in bed. It’s not like I think he’s gonna reciprocate.” That idea made Vinnie laugh, which felt good, anyway. “And it’s not like I didn’t know how he was gonna react.” Well, he hadn’t gotten it quite right, but it wasn’t like he’d thought Sonny was going to be overjoyed by his offer. “Which is pretty stupid. Last time I heard, Sonny liked blow-jobs. Yeah, but since when am I allowed to be gay?” This whole thing was so absurd, Vinnie knew he should feel like laughing, but he was closer to crying.

He loved waking up in the morning and feeling Sonny holding him. It felt dangerous, like a fatal mistake he couldn’t help making. But that pretty much summed up his whole relationship with Sonny, didn’t it?

Vinnie closed his eyes and thought about all the places where he'd had to fight to stay awake: six o'clock Mass . . . meetings in the war room where Elias droned on . . . science class . . . .

Sonny woke him up when he came back, though he didn't turn the lights back on. Vinnie watched him in the dark, knowing his acclimated eyes could see better than Sonny's. He was standing at the window, looking out.

"You should've told me about this." Maybe Sonny knew he was awake, or maybe he didn't care about waking him, or maybe he just didn't care if he was awake or not; he talked to Vinnie a lot when he knew Vinnie couldn't hear him, like when he was taking a shower. "You know that, right? That you should've told me, before all this started?" His voice was quiet and tired.

Vinnie wasn't following him. "Wait a minute, told you what?"

Sonny didn't answer him. "How long have you known?"

"How long have I known what?"

Sonny's voice went from exasperated to bordering-on-dangerous. "Quit playin' games. Did you know you were—gay—when you were working for me?"

The annoyed way he pronounced gay—as though this was something Vinnie was doing just to irritate him—made Vinnie want to laugh, but he didn't. Vinnie wasn't sure how to answer the question, since to Sonny bi meant "gay and pretending not to be." Still, he had to say something. "Sonny. I'm not gay."

Sonny turned around to look at him. "You're not." It wasn't a question exactly; it was more an expression of disbelief. "Then would you mind explaining to me just what you meant when you offered to suck me off earlier? Because that sounds gay to me."

Well, Sonny, what do you call a guy who lets his boss kiss him and hopes it happens again? Does that make me gay? Because if it does, then I guess I am. But maybe you ought'a ask yourself the same question, because Sonny, you're the one who was doing the kissing. Vinnie didn't say it, though. Instead he got up and started looking for his boots.

"What're you doing?"

"I'm going out." He found one, and after feeling around under the bed, he found the other.

"Out where?"

Vinnie waved toward the window. "Out there! I don't know, you went out, what's out there?" He picked up some of the crumpled bills he'd left on the bedside table, stuffed them in his pocket.

"There's a McDonald's, and a bar. It's cold out." Sonny was staring at him, looking—worried?

"I notice you managed to go out and come back without freezing to the ground." Vinnie went to the closet for his coat.

"You look like you've been sleeping in your clothes," Sonny said, though he wasn't looking at Vinnie anymore; he was back to staring out the window, and Vinnie noticed he was rubbing the palm of his right hand, where the scars were.

"I was, 'til you came back and woke me up. Is the McDonald's open?"

"I don't know." Sonny still wasn't turning around, but Vinnie knew he didn't want him to go, and he suddenly realized why.

"I'm going to get a couple hamburgers if they are, and if they're not, I'm going to scout around for someplace that is. You want anything?"

Sonny just shook his head. Vinnie noticed that he hadn't pulled the curtains aside to look out the window, he was peeking out from behind them, as though there was something out there he didn't want to see him.

Vinnie managed not to start laughing until he was in the lobby. No, Sonny, I'm not going out in the middle of the night in the cold because I have an overwhelming need to practice my sudden gayness and you're not cooperating! And by the way, you're certifiable, has anyone ever told you that?

The really crazy thing was, he should have expected this. Because if Sonny Steelgrave was going to make out with a guy, that guy had damn well be one hundred and ten percent straight.

The night clerk was looking at him like maybe he was the certifiable one. He went over to find out whether the McDonald's was open, thanking her when she said that it should be.

It was. The night shift, who had been hoping to cut out early, did not look pleased to see him. Vinnie ordered the two hamburgers and a vanilla shake, turning down the offer of fries. He hated McDonald's fries. He took the food with him and went to sit in the car.

So. Now you've managed to convince Sonny you're gay. Congratulations. He went over the whole conversation—both conversations, the one before Sonny left, and the one after he came back. Sonny was acting strange. He was pissed off, but what he was pissed off about was Vinnie not telling him he was gay. Which was weird on two levels.

The first level was, if Sonny was going to continue believing they were both one hundred percent straight, he should be mad that Vinnie was gay, not that he hadn't told him. The second level was the word gay. It wasn't a word Sonny would use. Before he'd left, he'd asked Vinnie if he was trying to tell him he was a fag, which was right—it was Sonny, it was who he was. When he came back, he wanted to know why Vinnie hadn't told him he was gay, which was wrong. It was Sonny being—

Not politically correct, but—considerate. He wasn't going to call Vinnie a fag, even if he was one. "Just when I think he can't surprise me anymore."

Which didn't solve his problem. He didn't know how to back out of this, didn't know how to convince Sonny he wasn't a fag, because why else would he want to give Sonny a blow-job? We're both bored out of our minds wasn't an adequate explanation, and there was no way he wanted to tell Sonny that this wouldn't be the first time he'd done this. Gay, straight, bi, whatever, whatever Vinnie was or had done, in Sonny's mind he belonged to Sonny, and there was no getting around that.

Vinnie finished his second hamburger, slurped up the remnants of his shake loudly through the straw. "I didn't tell you I'm gay because I'm not gay. I didn't tell you because I thought you'd pop me and I didn't want you to. I didn't tell you because—" Vinnie stopped. "I don't wanna talk about it." That was Sonny's game, but Vinnie didn't see why he couldn't play it too. "I don't wanna talk about it. You want a blow-job or not?" He thought about it for a while. "Sonny, I don't wanna talk about it, you want a blow-job or not?"

Yeah. It could work. Vinnie gathered up the McDonald's detritus and got out of the car to go back upstairs. Sonny was going to have to let him in; he'd forgotten to take the room key.

Sonny killed his opening line though. When Vinnie knocked, Sonny opened the door without a word or look and went back to what he was doing, which was throwing Vinnie's clothes on the floor.

"Hey! What the—" Sonny's look silenced him. Something was very wrong. "What're you doing?" Vinnie asked more quietly, his curiosity overwhelming his anger.

"Looking for stuff."

"What kind of stuff? You bought it all, you should know what's there." Vinnie sat down on the edge of his bed.

"Gimme your wallet." Sonny turned around to look at him. "Gimme your wallet!"

"All right, all right, here." Vinnie handed it to him. Sonny was muttering something that sounded like don't know who you are. He pulled everything out of Vinnie's wallet, including the little piece of paper with the number of the person who had inspected it, or whatever that was, then he dropped the wallet on the floor and took a pair of Vinnie's socks out of the drawer.

Vinnie was having vague, nervous feelings of cosmic retribution. He had gone through Sonny's wallet in the afternoon, now Sonny was going through everything he owned in the middle of the night, and somewhere God was laughing at both of them. Possibly the most disturbing thing was that Sonny was folding everything very neatly before dropping it on the floor. "Sonny, what do you think you're going to find?"

"You. I think, if I find anything, I'm going to find you, whoever you are." He rolled the socks back into a ball, dropped them on the floor, and went over to bolt and chain the door, looking out the peephole before he did. "Where were you?"

"I went out for a hamburger, like I told you." Whoever I am? Who do you think I am?

Sonny nodded, though Vinnie didn't think he was really listening. This would be funny, if it wasn't scaring Vinnie.

"They say that's the appeal of fast food," Vinnie went on, wanting to fill the disturbing silence. "It's the same everyplace you go. It's not true, though. The shakes are different in Brooklyn than they are here. Hell, the shakes are different in Brooklyn than they are in Jersey. I wonder why."

Sonny was looking at him now, perplexed and still a little scary. "What?"

"The milkshakes. They don't taste the same."

"You're a fucking McDonald's connoisseur? That figures." Sonny slammed the empty drawer shut, and leaving all of Vinnie's clothes in a heap on the floor, he went into the bathroom, stopping at the door to look out the peephole on the way.

Vinnie picked up his wallet and its contents. Not much, and—except for a couple of cartoons—all given to him by Sonny. Vinnie sat looking at the cartoons. Those he'd gotten from a couple of magazines in a med check waiting room in Nebraska. He'd gashed his hand changing a flat, and while he'd sat bleeding in a med check waiting room, he'd had time to read everything they had before they finally came and looked at his hand and agreed he needed stitches.

Sonny was still muttering in the bathroom, need to know who you are.

The first cartoon was a Gary Larson, a bunch of penguins sitting on a glacier, and among them sat a polar bear, who was wearing a penguin mask. And one of the penguins was saying, "And now Edgar's gone. ... Something's going on around here." If Sonny ever figured out why Vinnie kept it, he'd probably punch him again. "Be sure to squeeze out all the toothpaste," he said, not sure if Sonny could even hear him. "The good stuff's hidden in the bottom of the tube."

"Shut up."

OK, so Sonny could hear him.

The second cartoon was a man and woman sitting at a kitchen table, and the man was saying, "We cannot write a life policy for your husband, Mrs. Blaine, because he is already dead. In insurance terms, that is considered a pre-existing condition." For some reason, it made Vinnie think of Roger.

He put the cartoons back in his wallet. "What are you looking for again?" He put his wallet back in his pocket and went to stand in the doorway, watching Sonny—

Who was standing, looking at his razor as though he was having trouble remembering its purpose. "Shut up," he said absently, put the razor down, pushed Vinnie out of the way as though he was a swinging door, and left the room. "Who the fuck are you?"

Vinnie turned off the light and followed Sonny back into the bedroom. "Vincent Michael Terranova, former OCB agent. I've also been a college student, a mechanic, a paperboy, an altar boy—"

"Shut up."

"You asked me a question!"

Sonny shoved him, hard. "Who the fuck are you?"

Vinnie shoved him back, just on general principles. "Did you fall and hit your head while I was out? Why do you keep asking me who I am?"

Sonny didn't escalate things. "Because I don't know! Because I didn't know you were a cop, because I didn't know you were a fag—" Sonny's hand went not to his mouth but to his eyes the moment the word was out, as though he might apologize, but instead he turned around, walked away from Vinnie, over to the window. "What else don't I know about you?"

Oh. This wasn't about gay or straight or whatever, this was about who Vinnie was and what Sonny didn't know. I don't wanna talk about this wasn't going to work. Vinnie walked over to stand next to Sonny.

"Sonny, I'm not a fag. But I have done time, and it changes your outlook about some things. At least, it changed mine about this. Sex as a commodity, sex as a weapon, sex as a form of power—" Sonny was staring at him again, that waiting for you to finish look on his face. "Sex is a lot of things, and a blow-job just isn't a big deal, as long as nobody's trying to make you do it." Sonny didn't say anything.

If there had been anybody to admit it to, Vinnie would have admitted that what he did next was stupid. He went down on his knees, which was awkward, and he unzipped Sonny's jeans. "If you wanna say no, now's the time to say it. And no matter what you say or don't say, I don't wanna talk about this again."

Sonny didn't say no.

Vinnie hadn't done this in a while, not since Roger had shown up at his hotel room door to tell him what he thought of being stuck with Frank in Lynchboro, which could most succinctly be described as not happy. He'd stayed the weekend, and they'd spent a lot of time talking in between doing things neither of them would want their mothers to find out about. That was probably a couple of years ago, not long after Frank had gotten shot, when they knew he was going to be OK but they were all still in Seattle. It was good that it had been so long, since that made it easier to fake a lack of skill, which beat the hell out of having to explain any proficiency.

Sonny didn't say no, and he didn't say anything else except Vinnie's name, twice. Vinnie figured he'd done pretty well, though, since when he was finished, Sonny was weak in the knees. Vinnie's bed was closer and that's where Sonny lay down, kicking off his shoes and the jeans and shorts that they were tangled in. Vinnie considered sleeping in Sonny's bed, decided he'd have a better defense if he was in his own bed even if Sonny was in it too. So he turned off the lights and got into bed, and for the first time, wrapped himself around Sonny.

He wanted things to make sense. Was that a good reason to offer to suck Sonny’s cock? Maybe it wasn’t, but it was the only one he had. He wanted things to make sense. Do they make sense now?

Vinnie wasn’t sure. But Sonny felt really, really good in his arms, and in his bed, and Vinnie didn’t care what he had to do to get him there.


End file.
